Extract of sampleFrench Literature in Translation (Tristan and Iseult)

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Analyzing the translations of the French version of Tristan and Iseult, one can see that there were two main versions from the French poets of the twentieth century: Beroul and Thomas. These two versions differ in their presentation, style and in some of the scenes, though the theme and the plot were still the same. “Berouls romance was considered to be the uncourtly version, because it was less refined, and some of the scenes and the behaviors of the characters were brutal at times…On the other hand, Thomas wrote courtly version of the romance. Thomas was much more interested in the inner thoughts of the characters” (Joe, 1999). It makes clear the fact that there are differences between these two French versions.
The reader/audience can feel the driving force which is yearning for union beyond the restrictions of time, physical passion and their own separate material existence while going through Tristan and Isolde. Through their death, lovers achieved the realization of divine love. In other words, through the world of divine love they receive the status of immortality. Death is presented as a great opportunity to reach the state of oneness forever. Iseult embraces death with full passion and she joins her lover in a mystical background. In the old stories the lovers were buried on the side of a chapel and believed to be regained life with self realization. Wagner, in his opera, demonstrates the events with necessary improvisations and as a result reader can see the historical elements of Western ideologies and principles about love and death is presented clearly in Tristan and Iseult.
Wagner’s work underlines the fact that the story discusses serious sociological and psychological layers. The human relation (love between Tristan and Iseult) explores the elements of a great symphonic texture. Merging of the lovers is a perfect example of the
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The whole story revolves around him. He is the one who follows the old nurse in the start, and makes use of the priest and the two nuns to accomplish his heinous goals without letting them know of the gravity of their act. The stranger spies on the old nurse in the beginning.

First, he echoes M. Hamel’s words when the latter tells him, as well as the other students, that “when a people are enslaved, as long as they hold fast to their language it is as if they had the key to their prison” (Daudet 44). This means that language is not only a people’s means of communicating with each other but also – and more importantly – a means of defining the cultural identity of a people and a means of fostering national unity.

The events in the story involve conflicts in the relationships that people share and generally involve love as well as who is right and wrong. The ethical issues behind these events simply cannot be labeled as either right or wrong, unless the selection is one of religion.

The aim of this paper is to discuss these elements, especially in regards to the issues of taboo and desire in Romeo and Juliet and Tristan and Iseult. By comparing these two works, we can come to a clearer understanding of the differences in regards to the subjects of taboo and desire in separate settings.

What I struggled the most with was the character analysis in the right context, implying that the two characters compared here were two different personalities from two different backgrounds. The two characters analyzed in the paper were individuals having their own